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Climate farmers champion better forecasting

Bill Yates is a grain and livestock farmer from Mungindi in northern NSW, and a member of the the Climate Champions program.

A group of farmers from the Climate Champions program are in Canberra this week, talking to scientists from the Weather Bureau and CSIRO about climate research and what farmers need.

One of those farmers, Bill Yates from Mungundi, near Moree in northern NSW, says it's clear there's a long-term temperature increase underway in his region. He says he's a climate change believer, because the evidence stacks up.

"In my neck of the woods, it's quite dramatic. At Mungundi, for six out of the last 11 years, we've had our first 30-degree day in August. That had only happened three times in the previous 50 years before that, so something's changed," he said.

Mr Yates is a grains sector representative in the Climate Champions program, which brings together a diverse group of farmers from across the country, and is aimed at spreading information about Australia's changing climate, as well as giving farmers access to information to help them adapt.

Part of the program is about giving farmers access to climate researchers, and vice versa, so that farmers can tell the scientists what they're looking for in the research space, and also take back and share the latest research with communities and industries.

Mr Yates says many Australian farmers have already started adapting to their own changing climate conditions, whether that's consciously or not.

But he also argues that farmers need as much information as possible as they make those changes, and says that means a continued focus from the experts on improving the accuracy and availability or medium to long-range forecasts.

"If you think about where the US army or navy would be [in terms of getting detailed forecasting], compared to what we get, we get a four-day forecast which is an average of four to six international models out of the Bureau ," Mr Yates said.

"The real interest space is 10 to 18 days; they're getting so much more accurate at that, but we can't really get that unless we pay a huge subscription to the European modellers. So you wonder why we can't more information in that area."

Mr Yates acknowledges that forecasting has improved significantly over the past decade, but he wants that work to continue.

"The seven-day forecast is now as accurate as the four-day one was 10 years ago. So that's how much that's changed," he said.

"You've got satellites in there now that provide most of the data, so you're getting great coverage of the whole globe, which you need for a good model.

"There's no reason why that won't keep going, and we need access to that sort of data."